I love you best of all the people in the house. In some ways you are dearer than Oxford, although I could not get along without my splendid twin brother, but you make me think of my own dear mother, for you are so cozy and so kind. Of course she did not look like you, for she was just a small cat like myself. I mean you are like her in disposition. It is Sally Gray writing this. It is the first letter I ever wrote. I just had to thank you for all your kindness. Elvira is nice, too, but not as gentle as you are, and Miss Winifred doesn’t mean to step on my tail, only you never step on it, not even by accident, so some people are more thoughtful than others. Your own most loving SALLY She heard Miss Winifred coming and jumped down on the floor. Miss Winifred took up the sheet of paper and was about to put it into the typewriter. ‘Don’t,’ Sally pleaded in her thought-transference language. ‘That is my letter to Miss Harvey, the first I ever wrote.’ But Miss Winifred could not understand. She looked at the paper a little more closely with her near-sighted eyes. ‘Goodness, you little witch,’ she said, ‘you have walked all over my sheet.’ Sally saw that she was about to put it into the waste-paper basket. ‘It is my letter,’ Sally repeated in her own language. How she wished she had human speech! But this time it really seemed as if Miss Winifred understood, for she called to Miss Harvey, who was setting the table in the dining-room. ‘Come here a minute and see what Sally has done,’ she said as she held up the sheet. ‘See Sally’s paw-marks all over the paper. I think she must have been writing a love-letter to you.’ Sally never knew whether Miss Harvey could read what she had written, but, after all, it did not make much difference whether or not she could make out the actual words, for she seemed so pleased to have it. ‘Dear little Sally,’ she said, and she stopped to stroke the pussy in passing her. ‘So you thought you would write a letter? I must show it to Elvira.’ [Illustration] CHAPTER X MOODS Sally was a cat with moods. When she was well and busy, she was a happy kitten, but if there was the least thing wrong with her, she felt very forlorn. It was at these times that she thought of her dear mother and lamented her loss, for even dear Miss Harvey, who understood so well the feelings of a cat, could not quite make up for a furry mother who would put her paw about her and wash her when she was too tired to do it for herself. Oxford was not of much use as a sympathizer, and yet Sally always had the hope that he would be. So one hot summer day, when Sally felt very unhappy and as if she were of no use to any one, she spoke to Oxford of her feelings. ‘I feel as if I were a perfectly useless cat,’ she said. ‘You can do so much for the family.’